Coronavirus

[Anastasius]

Although I agree about the tendency to just accept what is being presented unquestioningly, without seeing all the footage I'm not sure it's possible to know that there was no discussion of the sort you mention. Those responsible for the finished product, whether papers, TV, online, and whatever the subject, will put out the version that meets their aims.

Ah, so it wasn't Piers Morgan doing the editing then .....LOL!

[Frances_iom]

Something funny is going on re Oxford/AstroZenica vaccine - has BJ done a deal with EU or are there technical problems as the delivered vs planned amounts show a major shortfall hence the EU again running around shouting 'not fair not fair' tho not quite like the headless chicken in the last fracas - yet EU nationals I suspect will not accept the vaccine given all the bad publicity and whilst the EU holds considerable stocks of same.
As a nominal high risk expecting 2nd dose of Pfier within next 3 weeks at latest I am beginning to see some problems re opening up much before end of Summer holiday period

[Petrushka]

Something funny is going on re Oxford/AstroZenica vaccine - has BJ done a deal with EU or are there technical problems as the delivered vs planned amounts show a major shortfall hence the EU again running around shouting 'not fair not fair' tho not quite like the headless chicken in the last fracas - yet EU nationals I suspect will not accept the vaccine given all the bad publicity and whilst the EU holds considerable stocks of same.
As a nominal high risk expecting 2nd dose of Pfier within next 3 weeks at latest I am beginning to see some problems re opening up much before end of Summer holiday period

Sky News reporting that AstraZenica are denying that they have any distribution problems, so someone isn't telling the truth - again!

[Dave2002]

No you misunderstand the statistics - you take two supposedly identical groups jab one with vaccine and jab the other with saline then see how many report any side effects - the difference in this experiment was 12 IIRC with 38 in vaccine grp + 26 in non vaccine displaying I presume a similar range of, I assume slight, side effects hence the comment that the vaccine did cause some additional side efffects over + above those that would be caused by a jab on its own.

Now the Norwegian cases (of which we have seen few if any details) state that in X number of jabs (X not being given) then we saw 7? bad effects within Y days of the jab (Y also not being given) then the test to apply is given X non jabbed drawn from a similar population then over Y days how many similar bad effects would we expect to see - statistics from the several million UK jabs show that those jabs have a lower change of bad effects than a non-jabbed population.

This then raises a question was there some other common factor that those jabbed shared that was different from a random population - one suggestion is that they may already have been incubating covid against which the jab would give no protection

Depends whether you believe that statistics can prove causality. I could argue that you never can, but reasonably I won't do that. I would say though that to base causality on statistics one has to have a lot of data, and do rather careful work to show a strong correlation and I rather doubt that has been done in this case.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm left wondering if the slow-up in vaccine production will delay my second jab, due early next month, though I have yet to be given a date. One of Hancock's "mins" said no, this morning.

[Bryn]

I'm left wondering if the slow-up in vaccine production will delay my second jab, due early next month, though I have yet to be given a date. One of Hancock's "mins" said no, this morning.

Hancock has just claimed that all second jab appointments already made will be honoured.

[oddoneout]

I'm left wondering if the slow-up in vaccine production will delay my second jab, due early next month, though I have yet to be given a date. One of Hancock's "mins" said no, this morning.

The need to ensure supplies for second doses which are now reaching significant levels was a reason given for a slowdown in first jabs to eligible cohorts in these parts, so I imagine elsewhere also. Large numbers of the eldest groups (high numbers thanks to demographics) were done early on in the process here(compared with the rest of the country) so are getting the second dose and that, coupled with some supply issues, has had a ripple effect on subsequent groups - as I know only too well!

[johnb]

I am sure it is a coincidence that the vaccine shortages come at a time when Matt Hancock has assumed overall control of the governments vaccine task force .....

[Frances_iom]

I am sure it is a coincidence that the vaccine shortages come at a time when Matt Hancock has assumed overall control of the governments vaccine task force .....

He may have timed it nicely as the fuss that the EU has been making for weeks re the Oxford/AZ may now die down and the under 50s won't follow the Europeans - the catch is that this age group includes many workers and even if they are most lightly affected by covid they can transmit it to others - eg the IoM outbreak infected 2 bin collectors with suggestion that all in the area affected wipe down their bins etc, also 2 warders at local jail - all in that wing locked in cells; also more now in hospital that at start last year - and this outbreak was initially spread by school children

[johnb]

I thought this might be of interest.

There has been a marked slow down in the rate of decrease in confirmed case numbers in recent days. I believe that the following chart shows that the recent dramatic increase in CV-19 tests has been a significant factor in this. (Look at the plots from early March on.)

[cloughie]

I thought this might be of interest.

There has been a marked slow down in the rate of decrease in confirmed case numbers in recent days. I believe that the following chart shows that the recent dramatic increase in CV-19 tests has been a significant factor in this. (Look at the plots from early March on.)

Whilst any increase is a cause for concern (there have been small increases in Cornwall but still in the teens per 100,000), has the mass testing for schools reopening exposed cases which were there before? The increasing numbers in France, Germany, Italy am
Nd other eu countries is worrying, and if there are stronger variants among them are we sufficiently protected by our jabs. What local information have the French residents on the forum?

[Anastasius]

@johnb Do you, by any chance, have a link to a site that has Covid cases by much finer geographic granularity, please ? I see that Northumberland is spiking quite alarmingly but as it's a very large county, it would be useful to know where the hotspots are. TIA.

[teamsaint]

@johnb Do you, by any chance, have a link to a site that has Covid cases by much finer geographic granularity, please ? I see that Northumberland is spiking quite alarmingly but as it's a very large county, it would be useful to know where the hotspots are. TIA.

The government dashboard has figures down to MSOA level. Just zoom in on the map.( works much better on my laptop than on my pad).

[Old Grumpy]

@johnb Do you, by any chance, have a link to a site that has Covid cases by much finer geographic granularity, please ? I see that Northumberland is spiking quite alarmingly but as it's a very large county, it would be useful to know where the hotspots are. TIA.

Is this any help?

[Simon B]

Whilst any increase is a cause for concern (there have been small increases in Cornwall but still in the teens per 100,000), has the mass testing for schools reopening exposed cases which were there before?

Consider this: The sudden upswing in testing is mostly a dramatic increase in lateral flow testing - 600,000 extra tests a day in short order. The testing prior to this was in large part directed testing - i.e. driven by symptoms, suspicions thereof, contact tracing etc. Most of the new extra testing is random - schools and workplaces.

The positives would thus be expected to be composed of (i) genuine cases in line with the underlying population prevalence measured by random sampling; (ii) false positives.

The last ONS estimates for (i) were something like 1 in 350 if I recall right. Conservative estimates for (ii) are 0.1%+ for the best Lateral Flow tests.

600,000 * (1/350 + 1/1000) ~= 2,300.

On that basis, of the current 7-day running average 5,300 cases a day 2,300 could reasonably be those added by doubling testing*.

[*Yes, I know there's a list of assumptions as long as your arm some of which probably aren't valid: All things are not equal, the actual true prevalence was dropping rapidly at the start, the ONS prevalence estimate is out of date, schoolchildren aren't a representative sample of the population etc etc]